An anime based on [email protected] that doesn’t involve giant robots?! Actually, I know nothing about [email protected] aside from what happened in Xenoglossia (which had pretty much nothing to do with the games) and that it’s a raising sim about, well, idols. I have no idea what to expect here, so let’s move on.

Right off the start we’re introduced to our first idol, Haruka, who greets the cameraman (the whole episode is done as if it was filmed) and then trips. She has to leave early in the morning to get to the studio she works at because she lives far away, so she is interviewed on the train by the cameraman.

We learn that she loves music and after she gets off the train and enters a convenience store, we meet our second idol, Makoto. Makoto is a bit of a tomboy, so a lot of her fans are female, but she secretly loves feminine things like shoujo magazines.

The scene then changes to show us (the extremely small looking) Studio 765 where the idols work at. After entering the building we meet Ritsuko, a former idol turned producer and the twins Ami and Mami.

Not even anime characters have the ability to look good on their driver’s license. WE’RE ALL DOOMED.

The twins start harassing the cameraman, but are stopped by Ritsuko and it’s then that we’re introduced to Hibiki, who can’t find her hamster. Rie Kugimiya then appears and asks what all the noise is about. Apparently after eating her hamster’s lunch (um, what?), it got mad at Hibiki and ran away. They go after it and we see some other idol and Makoto in the kitchen. Rie Kugimiya then shouts that there’s a cockroach and Makoto freaks out. The idol with the man phobia is introduced as Yukiho and she starts freaking out over the presence of the cameraman.

This is no time to idol around! The hamster is missing!

Idol # something (I’ve lost count), Yayoi pops in to see what’s going on and chaos ensues for a bit until Yayoi points out that the camera is still rolling. Iori (aka Kugimiya) then switches out of tsundere mode and is finally given a name.

We see Haruka again with another idol Chihaya, who is technologically challenged and can’t figure out an ipod or something. The scene switches to two older idols, Azusa and Takane. The last idol who is introduced is Miki, who seems to be really lazy and apparently does not have the ability to notice when a hamster crawls in her shirt.

So there you have it, all 13 of them. From the introductions, we then look into the life of an idol. We see Haruka, Miki and Chihaya doing vocal exercises, Ritsuko, Makoto and Yukiho doing an interview and Haruka and Kotori (an office assistant) handing out pamphlets. We also see Chihaya singing somewhere and through the cameraman’s questions, we learn that she loves music and is very serious when it comes to it.

Hibiki, Yukiho and Takane then have an audition and Hibiki mentions enthusiastically that she has a bunch of pets. After, it switches to interviewing Azusa, who didn’t get the part as a gravure model and apparently gets lost easily.

Another scene change and it’s an interview of Iori and Yayoi. The former of the two is a rich ojou-sama who got into the business through connections and has a stuffed rabbit named Charles Donatello the 18th. The later is the eldest out of a bunch of siblings and she uses her career to support her family.

Later, cameraman asks Ritsuko what she thinks it takes to be an idol and we see a glimpse of the head of studio 765, Chief Takagi (who unfortunately doesn’t have a face for continuity’s sake).

Some faces were left unfilmed to protect the identities of the innocent

After the credits, we learn that the cameraman actually had a purpose and that he is actually a talented producer who came to help out at the studio. The whole camera thing was to see the idols act naturally and we finally see the man behind the camera. The episode ends with the producer (who is unnamed for continuity’s sake) wishing to work well with the girls.

How all 13+ of them all fit inside this building is a mystery

Final Thoughts:

Between a plethora of bishies and lolis, A-1 Pictures has been busy. I was wondering how they’d turn the game into an anime, but this was interesting. The breaking of the fourth wall by pretending the characters were looking into a camera was actually pretty unique. The text at the bottom of the screen was a bit annoying to read, but again it was unique in the sense that it seemed like the idols were actually being interviewed. On the down side, there was minimal plot and it was basically just showcasing a bunch of random shots of the life of an idol. I don’t know if the following episodes will have the same kind of thing going on, or if it was just an introductory first episode thing. However, if the next episode is like this, I imagine it will be pretty difficult to have any real plot.

I recognised a few voices here, but I had difficulty placing them to seiyuu names. I recognised Rie Kugimiya right away (it helped that she was playing a tsundere XD) but that was about it. Takane’s voice will haunt me forever because KNOW I’ve heard it before, but I can’t place where. Also, aren’t Takane and Hibiki supposed to be part of a different studio? Does someone who’s actually played the games want to explain this to me? That aside, they’re idols so I’m expecting a concert or something in later episodes. Those are always fun. I loved all 5 seconds of Chihaya singing so hopefully there will be more of that too.

Overall, it was meh. I mean, the girls are cute and all and I’m sure those of you who like the games will probably like this, but this isn’t my cup of tea. It just seemed like nothing happened the entire time and the episode was more based towards the people who know the characters already rather than someone who was watching for the first time. The animation was okay, the character voices were okay (mind you, a few of them hurt my ears) and the episode was interesting. Really, the only reason I didn’t like this was because I don’t like slice of life in general.

Well I think it was a pretty good start to the series. It was an easy way to show off all the idols. I don’t know much about the series but my sister is a huge idolmaster fan so I asked her about Miki and Takane and she said the producer that they were with kicked them out so they joined 765.

This cannot be right. For one thing, Kuroi only had 3 idols altogether. Also, it takes time, so everyone would be 1 year older, whereas we know that Ritsuko only manages the whole group for 6 months. I think that TV anime simply forms a different continuity, in which Kuroi never existed. Rumors are that Project Jupiter is going to be the antagonist (on the other hand, there were rumors that Ritsuko would be the producer without P-san, so…).

[…] “It just seemed like nothing happened the entire time and the episode was more based towards the people who know the characters already rather than someone who was watching for the first time. The animation was okay, the character voices were okay (mind you, a few of them hurt my ears) and the episode was interesting.” – Metanorn […]